In a small rural town hit hard by the Depression, Katie Connors resides in a middle-class home with her bootlegging husband Melvin. When the opportunity arises to bump him off without getting her hands dirty, she takes a chance she may never get again. After his murder at the hands of criminal Richard Hayden, she begins to receive inopportune visits by Melvin's old business partners about a large shipment of moonshine in her possession. Contacting the FBI for help, agent Ron Sheridan is assigned to her case and develops an unrequited love for Katie. But when a full-scale war develops, she learns the FBI may not be much help to her as she thought, and Katie must take matters into her own hands to pay off her husband's debts for good.